Christiane Fritze, Katharina Prager and Evelyne Luef
Vienna City Library
Summary
Christiane FRITZE, Katharina PRAGER and Evelyne LUEF present a case on the Vienna City Library’s digital collection of materials related to the urban and cultural history of Vienna. Its holdings include manuscripts, correspondences, life documents, from the beginning up to now. The library has a catalog of its holdings but is working on a visualization tool-chain (diagrams, plots, networks, maps) to make it easier for researchers to access and explore the collection. The application that her team is developing is expected to be especially useful for researchers with specific research questions or for lay people interested in discovering the library’s holdings. It will allow users to filter and explore the collection based on different criteria, such as affiliation, education, language spoken, and time period. Aspects of uncertainty and vagueness in data are also addressed.
Keywords
digital collections, literary estate, libraries
Slides
Feedback
Linda FREYBERG argues that there should be more and multiple entry points to the library data given their diversity (e.g., starting from specific persona or places). Having a ‘perfect’ amount of entry points and committing to introduced standards is challenging, but crucial. The “Deutsche Digitale Bibliothek Visualized” as a prime example is highlighted.
Tiziana ALOCCI centers the question of how well the target audience is taken into account when designing the visualizations. While she ascertains the idea of interactive graphic as a means of exploration, it is questionable whether a (stacked) sunburst chart is suitable for keeping the audience engaged with the actual material.
Florian WINDHAGER makes the point that complex visualization spaces can be equally hard to code as to understand. He demonstrates on the basis of feasible examples (e.g., Visualisierung Landessammlungen Niederösterreich) that put user-centred design as a foundation. Such an approach might even begin with pen-and-paper design ideas and could include other stakeholders.
Keith ANDREWS is concerned about the question of how well hierarchy is (mis-)represented in a multi-layer sunburst diagram. He mentions several alternatives, such as hyperbolic browsers and multi-faceted search with set-based filtering (with references to the works of Silvia MIKSCH, University of Vienna).
Resources
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